HTC Exodus 1 blockchain-based phone launched, can be bought only using Bitcoins

HTC Exodus 1 blockchain-based phone launched, can be bought only using Bitcoins

The HTC Exodus 1 is a blockchain-based phone with the company's own proprietary Zion crypto wallet inside.

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India Today Tech

New Delhi

October 24, 2018

UPDATED: October 24, 2018 09:40 IST

HIGHLIGHTS

HTC has launched the Exodus 1 at a price of 0.15 Bitcoins or 4.78 Ethereum tokens.

HTC will start shipping the phone in December.

The HTC Exodus 1 is a blockchain-based phone with the company's own proprietary Zion crypto wallet inside. And unsurprisingly, you can buy it or rather pre-order it only using Bitcoins or Ethereum. HTC has launched the Exodus 1 at a price of 0.15 Bitcoins or 4.78 Ethereum tokens which roughly translates to Rs 70,488 but considering how volatile the cryptocurrency market is, you can't actually put a pin to it. HTC will start shipping the phone in December.

The Exodus 1 shares much of the design and hardware specs of the U12+ but in the case of HTC's new blockchain-based phone, it's what's on the inside that really counts. HTC has developed its own crypto wallet, called Zion, for the Exodus 1. The phone uses the trusted security enclave of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset to keey your keys hidden from the untrusted parts of the operating system (which is Android Oreo in the case of the Exodus 1) and apps.

The phone supports Social Key Recovery which allows you to pick x number of trusted sources to help you recreate your private key should you lose the phone. Lastly, the Exodus 1 is capable of running decentralized apps or dApps.

The design largely remains the same as the U12+. The translucent flavour will, just as it is in the case of the U12+, let you have a sneak-peak inside the phone so you can probably marvel at its innards.

The same is true about core hardware. The Exodus 1 has a 6-inch Quad-HD+ Super LCD 6 display with a 2880x1440 pixel resolution and 18:9 aspect ratio. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 6GB of RAM and up to 128GB storage. On the software front, it runs Android Oreo with Sense UI.

In terms of optics, the Exodus 1 ships with 4 cameras: two on the front and two on the back. It comes with a dual camera system on the rear consisting of one 12-megapixel sensor f/1.75 aperture and a secondary 16-megapixel telephoto lens capable of 2X optical zoom and 10X digital zoom. On the front, the Exodus 1 comes with two 8-megapixel cameras with f/2.0 aperture.

On the audio front, the Exodus 1 supports HTC's U-Sonic sound technology as also BoomSound along with High-Res support. The phone is backed by a 3,500mAh battery with support for Qualcomm's Quick Charge 3.0.